"Saved my life, he did! Got me right out of there! I know the building is probably gonna need to be torn down, but buildings can be replaced! Lives can't! And I bet the owner has a big insurance policy..."

One of the screens in the team base is scrolling slowly through news channels. As the only bit of metahuman activity that week, the press was eating it up.

"I don't know if my insurance will even cover this. I don't know... I'll see..."

Reviews were mixed. But there was a sudden strong presence on social media.

#IceHeist #Myhero

There's a photo there- Warp, wounded, teleporting one of the hostages to safety. It's getting a lot of hits.

Other pictures are getting views as well. Especially those of the heroes dragging Klaus out of the building.

#Messwiththebest #Blunderkind

Sophia, did Katya make it out and into police custody? Or was she still inside when the roof finally collapsed?


The adrenaline of the clash at the jewelry store is winding down. Finally, you have a moment or two to breathe. The base is yours. There are sodas in the fridge.

Liam took off the scarf/rag/mask once his portal closed and took a moment to wipe the sweat from his face with it.  The fight hadn't been all that physically exerting but he'd been breathing heavy by the time he opened a portal back here.  Using that much power that fast had felt freaking amazing.  And had frayed his control to the breaking point.  Now he could feel his body shaking slightly from the fading adrenaline and desire to just keep using it.  He had to keep telling himself that doing so would be bad.

Stuffing the rag in his pocket, he made a mental note to wash it later.  Walking over to the fridge, he opened it up.  He grabbed a pair and looked back, gently lobbing it to the the closest before grabbing a couple more to pass out.  "So... that was a thing," he finally said.

The usual flash and smoke motion happened on one side of the room, and Warp and Nenanero appeared. He had one arm over her shoulder and a deep frown in his face. With just a gesture,  he asked to be taken to the couch where just a few moments earlier he had been sitting. His walk was hard, his leg hurting, so he limped towards it and let go of her, sitting down.
He winced a bit, then touched the back of his head, where his fingers prodded the bump that was rapidly forming. "At least is not bleeding" he mumbled.
He was in a sour mood, not having seen the news yet, and in pain. He wasn't looking at anyone and even dismissed Nenaero, who had helped him, with not even a thank you. "That was not a thing, that was just plain awful". He said to Damocles. Then he removed his mask, placing it on the table and opened a container on his arm, not caring if anyone was watching, or if anyone was bothered by it,  and lighted a cigarette.

"Careful. Those things are going to kill you" Abigail said sarcastically as she had walked past. Her metal form led to a clinking against the ground as she walked. Although she didn't have the wounds that Warp had, she had taken a thrashing as well, and was clearly slow moving.

Meeting Damocles at the fridge with a few plastic bags, she raided the ice box, filling them and tying them off. Returning to Warp, she gently put the bag on his bad leg "this will help with the pain"

A lot of thoughts and emotions were swimming in her head, things she needed to get a grip on. She loudly stated "Hey, I'm sure we've all got stuff on our mind. Let's all take five, maybe ten minutes to decompress, before anyone starts a shouting match." Recognizing in her own head, even she didn't like the sound of her own idea, she added a caveat "or not. Nobody needs to say or do anything they don't want, including staying here."

Without another word, she headed back to the room where she had changed earlier, to get out of her torn and shredded clothes and into normal wear. As she walked, the clanking of the metal feet disappeared, as she turned  back to normal, wondering if there was really anything she had to say that the others needed or wanted to hear.

Space Thing, her hoodie torn and the expression on her alien face hard to read, just grunted. Her blue flesh didn't show any injuries, but she was covered in dust and still shaking off larger bits of debris. She'd had to go back into the collapsing building for Katya. It hadn't been pleasant, and Sophie was still fuming. Even without joints, her body language made that plain.

Nenanero could not disagree with the humans (even if she was not sure which thing Damocles had in mind). Granted, she escaped any physical battery, but her pride was stinging all the same. At least she managed to find Warp, but the apparent mastermind behind this attack got away, and seemed to be at least partly successful. Which meant that she had failed, even if they did rescue the hostages and deprive her of the muscle she recruited. And she didn't even get to fight anyone, to demonstrate her skill.

Letting Warp go without a word, the Anenav retreated into a corner to follow her roommate's advice and try to clear her head. She sat still and closed her eyes, willing herself to calm down and put things in perspective. One of the ruler caste needed to be rational and dispassionate, and she was clearly too frustrated right now.
This message was last edited by the player at 16:23, Fri 10 May 2019.

"Today proved how much we need training.  It shouldn't have gotten bad enough for that building to collapse.  Before you say anything, I'm including myself in this fiasco.  Unlike the rest of you, I trained for combat and still it got to this big a mess."  Paladin said, berating himself harsher than he was berating the others.

"That's a load of bullshit Andrew" Abigail's voice could be heard clearly through an open door. She didn't want it to go this way, but he ignored her advice, again. He brought this on himself

Having hurriedly put her clothes from school back on, she stormed up close to Paladin. "Do you really think you have a monopoly on combat training in this room? You think you're the only one whose old man showed you some things?"

Pointing to her roommate at first "Nena was engineered and trained to be a warrior earlier than any of us. Josep trained himself." Leaving her own training out of the question for the moment. Breaking away, Abigail sat down in a nearby chair, her arms crossed.

"The fight went bad because it's a fight we never should have had in the first place."

He was quiet, waiting for a few moments for people to settle down before speaking.  "I disagree," Damocles remarked.  "It was a situation that needed to be handled and, since no one else was stepping up, we needed to fight it.  I don't generally believe in or want to fight anyone.  But sometimes we don't have a lot of options," he said with a shrug.

"As for who has training and who doesn't, it doesn't matter.  We, the group, don't have it.  We're barely a team honestly.  And this is like any team out there, regardless of the setting.  You can have a AAA star but if the team doesn't practice or gel at all, the game's a crap shoot and likely going to suck."  He plopped down in a chair with his drink.  "So... positives and negatives.  Just being general here.  Positives first.  We got the people out.  No one died.  We all did our individual best I think," he said, speaking his thoughts.  "Negatives.  We were not a team.  We were basically individuals fighting in our own way, doing our own thing.  It was disjointed, no real communication between us.  People got hurt who shouldn't have.  We lost the whole building too."

"No one needs to get angry or accusatory.  We're in this together.  What matters is how we fix this.  How do we improve?  What could each of us have done better in this situation or even what could help our group do to improve?  I'm not saying I'm some combat veteran or that I'm an expert in anything.  Clearly I'm not.  I've been on a bunch of teams and this seems pretty standard stuff is all," he added with a little half shrug, trying to keep things progressing positively.